The Spectator magazine has been ordered to pay £5,000 in fines and compensation plus costs after admitting an article by Rob Liddle it published during the Stephen Lawrence murder trial could have prejudiced the case.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993 aged 18 (Picture: PA)

Lawyers for the magazine admitted a charge over the November 17 2011 article in which columnist Mr Liddle described defendants Gary Dobson and David Norris as ‘white trash’ while the trial took place at the Old Bailey.

Dobson and Norris were convicted of the 1993 murder in January and jailed for life.

Mr Liddle’s article also contained prejudicial information about their previous convictions and behaviour, both of which were subject to reporting restrictions during the trial.

Upon the article’s publication trial judge Mr Justice Treacy warned jurors to avoid reading it and referred the matter to the attorney general.

At Westminster Magistrates Court today Spectator 1828 Ltd – the magazine’s publisher – admitted a charge of breaching a court order made under Section 83 of Criminal Justice Act 2003.

Solicitor Brian Spiro apologised unreservedly to the Lawrence family over the ‘sad sequence of events’ that led to the article being published.

District Judge Howard Riddle accepted the Spectator had not intended to publish prejudicial material but claimed the article had the ‘potential to undermine justice’.

After imposing a fine of £3,000 the judge also ordered the magazine to compensate Stephen’s parents Neville and Doreen Lawrence £1,000 each due to the ‘additional distress’ it had caused.

‘Apart from the fact that the article breached a court order the reality is that as a result of publication there was at least a brief period during a sensitive part of the trial in which the whole trial process itself was in jeopardy,’ he said.

‘I don’t need any imagination whatsoever to see what distress this might have caused, not least to the Lawrence family and friends.

‘Fortunately it is clear that the jury did not read the article and the trial was able to come to a fair conclusion.

‘But for Mr and Mrs Lawrence and members of their family the prospect of the trial collapsing must have been terrifying.’